Villain hitting

Common card · No. 382869

Villain hitting, also known as da siu yan (Chinese: 打小人), demon exorcising, or petty person beating, is a form of folk sorcery practiced in the Guangdong region of China and in Hong Kong, particularly within Cantonese communities. The ritual is intended to symbolically curse, drive away, or otherwise neutralize one’s enemies through the targeted application of magic—usually by striking paper effigies representing the offending party with a shoe. In contemporary practice, villain hitting is often regarded as a modest, quasi-informal occupation typically performed by elderly women in roadside or underpass shrines, although commercial "DIY" kits are also available for the self-motivated. The practice has been preliminarily included on Hong Kong’s list of "intangible cultural heritage" by the Home Affairs Bureau, and was selected as the "Best Way to Get It Off Your Chest" in TIME magazine’s 2009 "Best of Asia" feature.

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